SUNDAY READING.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XLII, Issue XLII, 9 June 1923, Page 2

SUNDAY READING.

+ "WEALTH THAT NEVER FAILS.'' "The unsearchable riches of Christ."— Ephes. 3, 8. "•The unsearchable riches!" The inexplorable wealth, ranging vein beyond veiu, mine beyond mine, in land beyond lsaiu, in continent beyond continent! "The unsearchable riehe-s oi Christ!" And, then, side by side with this immeasurable glory, the apostle puts himself: "Unto me, who am less than the least of all saints, is this grace given!'' What an arresting and daring conjunction ! "The unsearchable riches'' . . . "me, the least of all saints!" It is like some solitary mountaineer contemplating the uplifted i splendours of Mont Blanc. "The unsearchable riches" . . . "unto me . . . ! given! 7' I turned my eyes away from the printed page, and I saw a bee ex. ploring the wealth of a nasturtiun flower. Then I thought of all tin flowers in the garden, and of all th< flowers in my neighbourhood, and ol all the flowers in my country, growing in quiet meadows, on heathery moor and in twilight glen; and then mj imagination roamed away to the flora splendours of other lands, bending or the blowing plain or nestling in th< hollows of the towering heights, ami still further ran my thoughts to tht inconceivable luxuriance of the tropics Arid then I came back to my bee, at it visited the hearts of the singl< I flowers in my garden; I thought of thai bee setting out to explore the flora wonders of the universe; and then ] came back to the apostle, equally busy extracting juices "sweeter than hone;; and the honeycomb," and almost be wildered by the vast and overwhelming glories of his inheritance. "The -un searchable riches of Christ" . . . "unt< me" given, "who am less than th< I least of all saints!'' The wealth i ! inexplorable. It cannot be peggei | out. It cannot be finally traced. N< I inventory can be given. There is al ; ways a beyond! His riches are inex j haustible. j The first-born sons of light \ Desire in vain its depths to see, / They cannot tell the mystery, The length and breadth and height. Let us turn our contemplation t( I one or two aspects of this "unsearch ! able7 'wealth. The Lord Jesus Chrisi j has created so exacting a conception o ; Himself in the minds of man that m i ministry of man can satisfy it. Nc ! human ministry can express it. Ji | ajll our best representations of the Lon there is always a missing something • an. "unsearchable 71 something, whicl j the most masterly fingers cannot span j Art cannot express Him. I ga.zed, tht 1 j other day, upon a powerful picture c our Saviour in conversation with Simoi , Peter. They were sitting together ii j Peter's fishing boat, drawn up upoi . the beach, and the disciple was bus;* ■ mending his nets. And as I Jooke'c I upon the fisherman—strong, muscular brawny—and watched him as he stray ed his fingers, and lifted his keen restless impulsive, friendly eyes upoi j his Master, I said to myself, "That': |my Peter! Whenever in coming day; 1 seek communion with Him, this ~i: the likeness that will occupy my vision i I want no other! The inspired artisi has given me Simon Peter and I an (satisfied!" But when I turned fron the fisherman to his Lord my heari gave no leap of contented recognition jrso; it was not my Saviour. Then were lines, of suggestive strength anc beauty, but my heart withheld its horn a?e. Ihere was amazing wealth ii j the representation, but who can express the unsearchable riches of Christ1'■ •iSo; that is not my Saviour," I said and I .turned away unsatisfied. iSor can .literature express Him Th« finest lineaments leave the half untold il suppose that Tennyson has given w I his conception of the Chri.st-.man ir I Kino: Arthur, as Thackeray has giver j us. his in the delicate and' lovely likeness of Colonel Neweome, but when out j hearts have kindled and glowed in theii j masculine refinements, when we have I stood wondering at the mingled j strength and transparency of their life j as it moves and shines like a classy ( sea our very wonder is chilled If we are told that the likeness must be inter ; prefced a*, the representation of our | Jiord. ISio; a fine man. but not mv | Saviour The heart i s unsatisfied i And so it is with all human ministries, with music and literature and art—they can give us a, little of- the glory • they can give us diamond wealth as "we see it in the jeweller's window, but th« diamond mir.es are unexplored. So exiting is the conception which the Lord Himself has given us. that no human representation is possible, and all our expectations fall dispirited before every attempt to portray "the unsearchable riches of Christ." But it is not only l that our Saviour lms. created an exact■mg conception of Himself. He has also by Hi.s "unsearchable riches," created | an exacting ideal of human possibility mien His disciples have been emancipated from the bondage of sin, and i have been led to occupy some radiant summit m the realm of piety and virtue, even in the midst of their highest attainment they have an overwhelming Wise of inexhaustible glories beyond" That was charaetensire of f±«i«isia. The Stoio got his feet planted upon a ' lower height, and abode there in un-oist-urbed satisfaction. Most certainly it was not characteristic of the PhariTul- i 171? tr^ed^ l of the Pharisee was' this—he had finally attained, all his riches were in possession, he had arrivS* •Ph. an l saism M a jeweller's win- ! flow, it had no mines. It.spent its time in window-dressing; it never set out on wondering explorations But the Lord Jesus has created an ideal of character, and hag opened out £ an enticing vistas of possibility wl3 ' leave us, after every conquest, wt new dominions yet to be won. 'Every TJ^ n\ * KS a new revelation; the I W2i. of er, er-7 a"«i«ment is a vision of further glory. And so it happens that, altogether unlike Pharisaism in. I the ranks of the Lord's disciples 'the " best are the lowliest, those who are ! Furthest up the slopes are the least con- ' scious of their attainments, for they ' =on template, with breathless reverence the far-spreading glories of th*iV <W ' searchable riches" in Christ 'NU though I had already attained, ofwe 'll already perfect but I press on * Unsearchable .riches!" We n'nnncompute their glory in Chris tcmrXrd" -ye cannot put our finser unon t h e i r ! nmw m human possibility. ,ndti;^/J, we cannot exiiaust their jjowers of

application to the ever-changing condi- ■ tions in human life and destiny. Jn j the Christian life new conditions never find us resourceless. Our wealth is in- , exhaustible, and always manifests it- ! self as current coin. An old world was pointed out to me the other day, of which there are records stretching" back through many centuries. J.. thought• or' , th.c strangely-varied and changing life which had gathered about its birth, and " how it had abundantly satisfied th« I needs of different environments thai . had passed away like dissolving views, c Here had come the wandering minstrel and the devote monk, and the tired i soldier and the itinerant evangelist, and ; the farmer and the labourer, and the , woman and the child, and the spring '. had never failed! Through mediaeval - days, and in the wonderful light o fthe - Renaissance, and in the fierce, stern , days of martial enterprise, and amid ■ the ferment of the Reformation, and the latter kindlings of the evangelical r .revival, down to our own day, when I nothing harsh or hard seems to disturb the pastoral peace and simplicity, the well has been flowing, a minister of un- • ceasing refreshment. i It is so with the inexhaustible . "riches of Christ. Their glory is found in their immediate applicability to all the changes of our changing years. * They never leave us, w_e never have to > discard them, they are always up to p date and pertinent. We can begin to use them when we are young. And 5 when we grow older, and the apprehen- , sion has become a fittle more matured, 7 larger resources are disclosed to our , larger capacity, and the riches are plentiful to the vaster needs. Our i Lord never wears out. He is* always j. equal to the problem. He always brims j to the new occasion, and i_ Him we are always full. "("To Thee shall age with snowy hair, And strentgh. and beauty bend the i j- knee, } I And childhood lisp, with reverent air. , I It's praises and its prayers to Thee." i But it is not only that the able liclies of Christ'1 adapt themselves I and reval their wealth to the changing , condition of our years, it is that in our j personal crises, when life suddenly leaps into fierce emergency, their resources are all available, and never leave us r, in the lurch. There are three great _ crises in human life —the crisis of sin, the crisis of sorrow, and the crisis of death—and by its ability to cope with J these crises every philosophy and every 5 ministry must be finally determined and j tried. How fares it with the riches of '•"Christ in these emergencies? Is He - the ocean of grace only for childlike . paddling, or can it carry a liner? vVhen ■ we come to crises like these, is the | Christian's exchequer empty, or is j there an abundance of money/ and is it j current coin? How is it with sin? Are I the "unsearchable riches" available? Is ■\ there any ministry dealing with the \ real virus of . sin," and the haunting, , paralysing Nemesis of guiit, except the . redeeming grac-p of Christ? Do you know of any other ministry that' is = seeking to ► "Cleanse the stuffed bosom of that » perilous stuff i Which weighs upon the heart?'' Is it not the bare truth to say that | every other exchequer is empty V And 1 is it not the bare truth of common experience to say that into the wreched- \ ness of our moral impoverishment, and into the sunless places of our spiritual ■ depravity, redeeming grace enters, and ; begins its mighty work of restoration ; and enrichment? This was the glory of . Christianity to the Apostle Paul, and this it was which inspired his loudest 1 and most triumphant sons."''He breaks the power of cancelled sin'," He sets the prisoner free!" And Paul found thoso liberating energies in strange place; 1 they.were to him-the treusuresTof dark--1 n-ess," for they sprang out-of the aw--1 ful poverty and devolutions of Calvary. To the Apostle Pau! Calvary just meant ,"the unsearchab'e riches" of love and grace in conflict with unspeakable powers of guilt and sin, accomplishing their triumphant overthrow, and establishing an open way to the heavenly land of light and peace. "The unsearchable riches" do not "give out1' in the high crises of our awful sin and guilt. 4'What is that you once said?" asked a distressed woman of me the other day "What is that you once said of the love of Christ to sinners? Tell me once again!" And she helped my memory until J had recovered tiie word she wa»jted, and it was tins: i; He hath , loved thee more than thou has loved thy sin!" ~Aud again I repeat it, that everybody 'may know that "where sin abounds grace cloth much more abound,' and that in this deep and dark necessity, where every other form of wealth tails, the --unsearchable riches of Christ' are all-sufficient, for He has purchased our redemption with His blood." It is even so with the other crises I have named, the emergency of sorrow. "n«, tlie _.Bolemn and austere occasion of death. That wealth of grace He piles up about the sorrow of them that love Him, throwing upon it riches of soft and softening light, until, like the bare screes at gloomy Wastwater, when the . sunshine falls rnon tk*m, colours emerge which make the grief tolerable as it lies transfigured before the counl inT'f °f G, od> "Th* -T>e°l )]« fchat sat { r da£Kness have seen n great lio-ht " {" Thy light shall we^see light"'• Now are ye light in the Lard »» ' And at the end of the "umrney when we arrive at the toll- Kat . through which ;ye must pass, we need fear no ill. The unsearchable riches 1' will he still avail-1 able and we shall nli.s.s quietly and se- ' mnely ln to the realm of dearer air and J- H. JOWETT. I